214. 
THE GEOLOGIST. 
The captain had not allowed for the poUtr currmt. Then the planet Uranus would 
not travel in its orbit, as it ought to have done, but at last the secret was found 
out, the astronomers had not allowed for the dinlurbances produced by Neptune. 
And ^et, after all, nature was right in all these instances. Man, himself, was 
wrong. jSow, Mr. Gosse's book is a nice book — a good book to look at, beautifully 
printed, charmingly illustrated, just a little book worthy of Mr. Gosse in its 
appearance and address, but very unworthy of Mr. (iosse, and indeed of anybody 
else, in its doctrine. Mr. Gosse has not allowed for the wind, or he bad been a 
better shot ; he has forgotten the polar stream, and his argument is wrecked on 
the blulf coasts of Kature, and the rocks of facts ; be has not allowed for the 
disturbances of Neptune, and his own course is erratic In consequence. 
The great feature of Mr. Gosse's book is the so-called " prochronic " theory ; 
that is to say, Mr. Gosse teaches the idea of a non-existent pre-existencc for eveiy 
created thing and being. This is the plain English of the doctrine after all. Mr. 
Gosse finds Scripturists and Geologists at variance about the seven days of 
Creation ; and Mr. Gosse attempts to get out of the difficulty by assuming all the 
evidences of creation to be delusions. He sets out with these principles, that 
the evidence of the senses is often delusive ; that the deductions of human reason 
are fallible ; that essential considerations are often overlooked ; that there is a 
discrepancy between Scripture and Geology, and that this is a jsainful dilemma, to 
escape from which none of the numerous eflbrts yet made have been successful. 
He then reviews these various attempts from the "diluvial ' theories of the older 
writers, who attributed all geological phenomena to the deluge — to that modern 
doctrine of progressive development which finds for Adam, as Mr. Gosse facetiously 
writes, an immediate ancestor in a chimpanzee, and a remote ancestor in a maggot. 
He next passes under review the strata composing the crust of the earth — the 
organic remains contained in them — the disturbances of the beds — internal heat 
— fossil footprints — bone-caves — volcanos — changes of level — and, in short, all 
the well-known geological phenomena. 
But in all these matters — all these — geologists, Mr. Gosse says, are wrong; he 
admits the grandeur of theii" evidence ; he acknowledges the shrewdness of their 
reasonings ; he admires the intellect, and skill, and energy they have exhibited in 
wor king out these subjects ; and after summing up the geological facts he is forced to 
admit — " A mighty array of evidence it certainly is, and such as appears at first 
to compel our assent to the sequent claimed for it. I must confess, however," he 
adds, " that / have no sympathy with the reasonings of those, however I honour 
their design, who can find a sufficient cause for these phenomena in the natural 
operations of the antediluvian centuiies, or in the convulsion that closed them ? 
But is there no other alternative ? ' Mr. Gosse believes there is. And, if geological 
inferences be untrue, so do we; but there is no alternative to tiuth — and truth 
we can only know by the evidence of our senses. 
It is all very well to call geological facts only circumstantial evidence — we can 
have no other evidence than circumstantial of what we have not seen — atd it is 
only by such circumstantial evidence that the case in dispute can be settled ; — and, 
after all, is there a discrepancy between Geology and Scripture ? We must not 
take up GUI- ]5ibles and, with certain notions of our own, point out certain passages 
and say the Bible says so and so, and, therefore, no evidence of the senseti must be 
allowed to contradict it. 1'hat is doing something not at all equal to circum- 
stantial evidence — it is merely putting the theories or imaginings of an individual 
against facts. It is not by taking our own views of what the Bible means, and 
